Privacy policy

Thank you for visiting commonsignals.org (the "Site"), run by Common Signals ("we", "us" or "our"). We respect your privacy and, whether you are visiting the Site as a researcher, funder, potential partner or member of the public, you are entitled to the protection of your personal data. Please read this Privacy Policy to learn how we treat it.

By using or accessing the Site in any manner, you acknowledge that you accept the practices described below, and you consent that we will collect, use and share your information as described here.

1. What this covers

This Privacy Policy covers how we treat personal data gathered when you access or use the Site. It does not cover the practices of companies we do not own or control, including the platforms (Substack, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram and others) that comments or subscriptions pass through on their way to or from us, nor information obtained or disclosed in offline correspondence. If you have a disability and need this policy in an alternative format, contact [email protected].

"Personal data" here means any information that identifies or relates to a particular individual, including what applicable law calls "personally identifiable information" or "personal information".

2. What we collect

From you directly:

• Your email address, if you sign up to our newsletter. This goes directly to our newsletter provider, Substack, which sends and manages the mailing list; see their privacy policy for how they handle it.
• Whatever you tell us, if you email [email protected] or otherwise contact us directly.

Collected automatically:

• Usage data about how you browse the Site, through our analytics provider, PostHog. See Cookies and tracking below.

From third parties, for our research:

• Publicly posted comments from YouTube, Reddit and Instagram, which we retrieve and code to study how the public responds to AI-related communication. These comments are not personal data you have given us; they are public posts made by other people on other platforms. We anonymise them before they leave our collection environment: author identifiers are replaced with a salted hash and the salt is discarded, so the mapping cannot be reversed, and we never publish usernames or handles. See our methodology page for the full detail on how this works.

3. How we share it

We share personal data with the following categories of service providers, each processing it only to help us run the Site or our research:

• Cloudflare, which hosts the Site and provides security and delivery infrastructure.
• PostHog, which provides Site analytics.
• Substack, which sends and manages our email newsletter.

We may also share personal data where required to meet a legal obligation, or if we are involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets; if that happens, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you before your data becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

We may create aggregated, de-identified or anonymised data from the personal data we collect, and use or share that data for our research and other lawful purposes, provided it cannot be used to identify you.

4. Cookies and tracking

The Site uses cookies and similar technologies to recognise your browser, understand how you use the Site and improve it. Because of this, the Site does not currently respond to browser "Do Not Track" signals.

We use these categories of cookies:

• Essential cookies. Needed for features you request; disabling them may break parts of the Site.
• Functional cookies. Remember your preferences and settings between visits.
• Analytics cookies. Set by PostHog, to help us understand how visitors use the Site so we can improve it.

You can control cookies through your browser settings, including refusing them or deleting ones already set. If you do, some parts of the Site may not work as intended. For more on managing cookies generally, see the UK Information Commissioner's Office's guidance on cookies or allaboutcookies.org.

5. Security and retention

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal data, including serving the Site over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection. We keep personal data for as long as necessary to run the Site and our research, meet our legal obligations, or resolve disputes, and may retain anonymised or aggregated data indefinitely where it no longer identifies you.

No method of transmitting or storing data over the internet is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security of any data you share with us.

6. Children's data

We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16, except with parental consent. If we learn we have done so without consent, we will delete it as quickly as possible. If you believe a child under 16 may have provided us personal data, contact [email protected].

7. US resident rights

California. California residents can contact us to prevent disclosure of personal data to third parties for those parties' own direct marketing purposes, under California Civil Code Sections 1798.83 to 1798.84. Contact [email protected] to make such a request.

Nevada. Nevada residents have the right to opt out of the sale of certain personal data to third parties who intend to license or sell it. We do not currently sell personal data as defined under Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 603A. To make a request, email [email protected] with the subject line "Nevada do not sell request" and your name.

8. Changes to this policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make a material change, we will post a notice on the Site, and may also email registered subscribers. Continuing to use the Site after a change takes effect means you accept the updated policy. Use of information we collect is subject to the policy in effect at the time it was collected.

9. Contact

Questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, or how we collect and use your personal data? Email [email protected].